Senior Engineering Manager (AI Geospatial Assistant Team)

Join Planet, a company on a mission to image the entire world every day and make global change visible, accessible, and actionable. As a Senior Engineering Manager, you will lead a high-velocity squad of engineers in transitioning geospatial AI capabilities into a robust, market-ready product. You will be responsible for the full talent lifecycle, establishing a culture of extreme ownership, designing team operations, collaborating with AI researchers, and mentoring a diverse group of engineers. This is an exciting opportunity to make a significant impact in the field of AI and geospatial technology.

• Lead a high-velocity squad of engineers in transitioning geospatial AI capabilities into a robust, market-ready product.
• Responsible for the full talent lifecycle, from sourcing and hiring the initial high-agency founding squad to designing an onboarding experience.
• Foster an environment where engineers own customer outcomes rather than just technical tasks, and define what accountability looks like in a high-uncertainty, non-deterministic AI environment.
• 6+ years of relevant experience
• Expert in the "human element" of engineering—managing conflict, delivering difficult feedback, and keeping a team motivated through the inevitable pivots of an early-stage product
• Experience and enthusiasm for leading AI engineering teams that have successfully elevated research prototypes into production-grade applications. This enthusiasm should not only inform the product features, but should also foster a culture of developer workflows that take an AI-assisted development approach
• Pragmatic Execution: A "good enough—move on" mentality that avoids seeking perfection at the cost of delivering meaningful customer value
• 4+ years of experience leading software engineering teams
• Ability to identify "process bugs" (why a team is slowing down) and implement the cultural or structural changes needed to restore velocity
• Impact focused: You are excited by building an application that once launched, will give researchers, journalists, governments, and NGOs the ability to explore the world using natural language and surface crucial insights that used to take months to find
• Experience with geospatial data or planetary-scale analytics is highly preferred
• Technical Breadth: While you may not be the deepest specialist on the team, you have the breadth to synthesize input from AI researchers and frontend experts to make sound architectural and personnel decisions. This includes an ability to identify optimizations that may be better handled with a collaboration with a research team (eg. request development of a fine tuned model for a slow but simple LLM call)
• Bachelor’s degree in a relevant field
• Track record of hiring and leading founding engineering teams in a startup or high-growth "intrapreneurial" environment
• Product-First Mindset: A track record of balancing technical excellence with the urgency of market delivery and "graduation criteria"
• LLM Observability and Monitoring: Prior experience with tools and techniques for managing non-deterministic systems (e.g., LangSmith, Arize, or similar)
• Public Leadership: You are comfortable representing the team’s work to executive leadership and external stakeholders, acting as a "shield" for your team so they can focus on building
• Geospatial Context: Prior experience with geospatial data, satellite imagery, or planetary-scale analytics
• If this job intrigues you, but you’re thinking you might not have all the qualifications, please... do apply! At Planet, we are looking for well-rounded people from around the world who can contribute to more ways than just what is listed in this job description